A number of tissue adhesives have been used in various medical procedures and applications, including topical wound closure, supplementing or replacing surgical sutures or staples, adhesion of synthetic materials to biological tissues, and drug delivery. A number of known tissue adhesives, however, are unsuitable for many applications, for example, due to toxic degradation products, slow curing, poor mechanical strength, and other drawbacks.
Several varieties of hydrogel adhesives have been developed, which are nontoxic and have improved properties. These hydrogels are generally formed by reacting a component having nucleophilic groups with a component having electrophilic groups that react to form a crosslinked network. However, these hydrogels typically dissolve too quickly, lack sufficient adhesion, or have insufficient mechanical strength.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide improved adhesive formulations that overcome one or more of the above-described disadvantages.